During last year’s forest fires in the B.C. Interior, the three Saanich Peninsula fire departments sent their own firefighters to help, and because they were short-staffed during those times, they agreed to co-operate for large structure fires regardless of municipal boundaries. Now, the agreement is official.
A Mutual Aid Agreement was amended earlier in March and announced on March 8, which would see all three departments sent out to any structure fires on the Peninsula. According to a press release, additional resources would be “front-loaded” into the dispatch process so firefighters would appear sooner at incidents. This protocol was used for a house fire on Beach View Court Tuesday morning, where flames were spotted from two bedroom windows. It caused “extensive damage” to the house according to John Robertson, assistant chief with Central Saanich Fire.
Central Saanich Fire arrived first, about eight minutes after the call, and Sidney and North Saanich followed shortly thereafter with one apparatus each. The house was unoccupied at the time so no injuries were reported.
In an interview with the Peninsula News Review, Robertson said Peninsula firefighting departments are made up of many volunteers who might be at home rather than at the station, and so by paging partners automatically for confirmed structure fires (the agreement does not include smaller jobs like chimney fires), “we are sort of hedging our bets against any time delay.”
Robertson said a response from all three departments would still be somewhat rare since confirmed structure fires are not an everyday occurence, but even if a fire were to happen elsewhere, Robertson said it would be beneficial for response times “because the vehicles are already on the road.”
reporter@peninsulanewsreview.com
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